What to do with Chris Capuano?

Stop me if you’ve read this before — Chris Capuano is cruising along through five innings when he collapses in the sixth, allowing a bunch of runs to lose the game. It happened yet again on Saturday.

Capuano was shutting out the Marlins when he allowed a single, triple and two home runs in the sixth, and suddenly the Mets were down 4-2. Utterly useless relievers D.J. Carrasco and Ryota Igarashi didn’t help matters, allowing three runs in the seventh and one in the eighth respectively.

The Mets made it somewhat interesting in the ninth with back-to-back solo homers by Lucas Duda (his first of the season) and Jose Reyes (his third hit of the game. Amazing). Still, they went down 8-5.

But what do you do with a pitcher like Capuano? Do you just take him out of every game after five innings to avoid the inevitable collapse? That really isn’t feasible, yet if you know something is going to happen and you do nothing to stop it, aren’t you at fault as well?

The only answer is to get rid of him. I’m sure there is a pitching-hungry contender out there who would take him for a mid-level prospect. However Sandy Alderson has reportedly said that not only will he not trade Capuano, he is interested in resigning him following the season.

That would be a huge mistake. We have seen what Capuano has to offer, and it is nothing special. Why waste more time and money on him? The better option would be to either sign another pitcher, or better yet, give one of the team’s own prospects a shot. Capuano is not part of the long-term future of the Mets — let’s figure out who may be.